INTELLECTUAL AND PHYSICAL LIFE 57 



increasing infirmities, chief of which were " chronic consumption and 

 asthma." All this " painfully impeded his schemes of work and occa- 

 sionally induced states of mind altogether at variance with its otherwise 

 robust character." He was twenty years in writing his famous " Essay 

 on the Human Understanding " and it was done " by incoherent par- 

 cels and after long intervals of neglect." No man was ever more 

 impressed with the value of health and vigor and his " Thoughts on 

 Education " begin with the bitter words, " Our clay cottage is not to 

 be neglected " — for " he whose body is crazy and feeble will never be 

 able to advance in it." 



Immanuel Kant is a shining example of what can be done in econ- 

 omizing the bodily forces, and of how much may be accomplished in 

 the way of mental work by a frail body which is kept in a fair state 

 of health. " Possibly a more meager, arid, parched anatomy of a man 

 has not appeared upon this earth." " His organization was so delicate 

 that he was extremely sensitive to impressions from external objects, 

 and Jachmann relates that a newspaper fresh from the press and still 

 damp would give him a cold." " His digestive organs were early 

 deranged and gave him perpetual trouble." Yet he said of himself 

 that he was healthy, " that is in my usual weak way." If we can trust 

 DeQuincy, " Kant's health was even exquisite." That " weak way " 

 interfered with his work and he exclaimed : " Think of it, friends ! 

 Sixty years old, constantly disturbed by indisposition in plans only half 

 completed." " He spoke of himself often under the figure of a gym- 

 nastic artist, who had continued for nearly fourscore years to support 

 himself upon the slack rope of life -without once swerving to the right 

 or to the left." We owe to Kant's clock-work regularity and temper- 

 ance of living the product which his fine brain produced, and his vast 

 influence upon the world. 



Herbert Spencer is another example of a philosopher who is put 

 down as an invalid, and invalid he was for the greater part of his life 

 after thirty-five. At thirteen he became homesick at school and started 

 one morning at six for home; walked forty-eight miles the first day, 

 forty-seven the second and twenty miles the third day, and in the whole 

 time had very little to eat. It would seem that only a child of very 

 remarkable vitality could have carried out such a program and sur- 

 vived. As he himself says, " It can scarcely be doubted that my system 

 received a detrimental shock . . . although there was no manifest sign 

 of mischief." As a boy he excelled in running and was a good skater. 



At sixteen he speaks of himself as " strong, in good health, and of 

 good stature," but easily excited and kept awake. 



At twenty-one as a draughtsman he worked from eight in the 

 morning to twelve at night and one day a week to three a.m. Keep- 

 ing these hours, either with his routine or literary work, he found him- 



